They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers by Sarah Scoles
Author:Sarah Scoles [Scoles, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
When we crest Hancock Summit, the last high point on the way to our destination, we look down on the darkened Amargosa Valley. This plain has menacing topography. It lies a mountain ridge over from Groom Lake, where Area 51 is. Also, itâs near Yucca Mountain, where since the 1980s the government has on-and-off planned to deposit the nationâs nuclear waste, making it potentially uninhabitable for tens of thousands of yearsâso long that the Department of Energy had to hire linguists and anthropologists to determine how best to communicate âSkin-melting poison! Steer clear!â to people who wonât be born till 12,020 c.e.
Waste from human violence and power make a good metaphor, but you canât actually see Yucca Mountain from here. And given that itâs nighttime, we canât see any other mountains either. The geography here, though, looks strange to the eyes of people who grew up âback East.â There, mountains are gentle and grow leaves. Here, they are sharp mounds of semi-permanent dirt, hydrodynamically eroded into caverns and cones, rising from nothing. Their low brush, cacti, and Mormon Tea plants feel exotic, their beauty austere and distanced. Over there, mountains seem to want life to exist. Here, everything about them (even without the gun-toting guards) screams, âGet out!â And, because âhard to getâ has, historically, held a certain appeal, I like them a lot.
But all these contours pass us by unseen as we search for roadside pull offs where we could camp. Much of the property around Area 51 belongs to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the governmental organization that deals with one-tenth of the countryâs landmass, some 245 million acres. On that acreage, youâre generally allowed to camp anywhere youâre not contaminating a water source, of which there are not many here.
Finally, we choose a pull-off that Arnu has labeledâon the map he hosts on Dreamland ResortââGravel Parking.â Itâs a wide rectangle with rounded corners. An interpretive sign on one side explains that there are two kinds of Joshua trees: tall and lanky ones, short and squatty ones. Just a single species of moth pollinates each. Without this hyperspecialized symbiosis, these trees wouldnât exist at all. What relationships of convenience might alien environments have forced on other planets? Just as Iâm contemplating that, headlights from a distant car appear down the road. They are the first ground-based illumination weâve seen in a long time.
âLetâs wait for it to go by,â says Carolyn, wary of setting up camp when a stranger could whiz by and note exactly where three women are camping alone.
So we get out and kick around some pebbles, pretending we are about to head somewhere else in the universe. But the lights seem to stay exactly where they are. You could say they hover, if you were inclined to use such a word. Then, with nary a flicker, they disappear.
Maybe the person has turned off onto a side road, or perhaps to their own gravel campsite.
âTurn on your lights and pretend to leave,â Carolyn urges, craning toward the window.
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